The General at 100 

My education in silent films started at the inception of my cinephilia. I've always had a passion for the arts, but mediums like painting, theatre and music had such long histories that my contributions felt worthless. Movies, on the other hand, only started in 1895. This relatively short history made me believe that there was still space for a guy like me to make his mark. Looking to better understand the essence of film, it felt logical to start my studies at the beginning.

To study film history, I decided to start a quest. I made a massive list that included just about every major movie from the dawn of cinema's invention all the way up to the present day. My mom always says that my eyes are bigger than my stomach, and that applies to more than just my dinner. It's also true about my love of starting side projects that are unnecessarily behemoth. It became immediately apparent that, to watch everything on this list, I would have to get through around 25 years of silent movies.

Headstrong as always, I began. For 1903, I watched The Great Train Robbery. For 1915, I watched the still-controversial The Birth of a Nation, shortly followed by 1916's Intolerance. The film for 1919 was Broken Blossoms. This project took months and I barely cracked the sound era before I gave up completely. Was this experience worth it? Who's to say. What I gained was an encyclopedic knowledge of films that nobody ever asks about.

Until today! This weekend in Buenos Aires, the Palacio Libertad is screening The General with the accompaniment of a live orchestra. I was contacted to write an article that would complement this event. It looks like the months and months of silent-movie watching are finally paying off.

The General was released 100 years ago, in 1926, right at the end of the silent-movie era. By 1927, Al Jolson would break the sound barrier with his innovative (and controversial) film, The Jazz Singer. But, in 1926, the world was still silent and one of the silent era's biggest stars, Buster Keaton, was at the height of his capabilities.

Keaton's name and the origins of American cinema are synonymous. By 1926, Keaton had already acted in over 40 movies, including many short, hilarious and largely forgotten collaborations with Fatty Arbuckle. The Bell Boy is one that I'm particularly fond of.

Through his dead-pan face and knack for slapstick comedy, Keaton had become one of the most recognizable faces of the silent era, right up there with Charlie Chaplin and Lillian Gish. With The General, he was basically given carte blanche to do what he wanted. He would never get this privilege again.

Let's start with the premise of The General, because it's where most of the modern-day quandary around the film stems. Keaton plays Johnnie Gray, a Southerner at the outbreak of the American Civil War. The film is based on a true story, but the book it is based on is told from the perspective of the Union. It was Keaton who decided to change the main character's loyalty to the Southern Confederacy.

Keaton, a Midwesterner, chose to make his protagonist a Southerner because he worried that the audience wouldn't accept the Confederates as the villains. Boy, was he wrong. The General was panned by critics as some of Keaton's unfunniest work. The box-office numbers weren't much better. Yet, Keaton's miscalculation ended up being absolved by history, as The General became his most well-known work. I think that's because the choice to use the South stems from Keaton's understanding of comedy — an understanding that transcends time.

In my view, the backbone of comedy is humility. If you say or do something that you should feel ashamed or humiliated to say or do, it tends to come off as pretty funny. There is no humility in winning a war. There is a ton of humility in losing one. By choosing the losing side, Keaton plays with America's sympathy. The American Civil War was not a war against a foreign, incomprehensible enemy. As with all civil wars, it was a war of countryman versus countryman. It stands to reason that Americans would feel sympathy for each other, even if their ideologies are not aligned, because they share a common motherland and history. Current events would colour this concept as optimistic.

If you read between the lines, you might notice that a lot of the humour in The General stems from the dilapidation of the American South. Take the big battle scene at the end. Johnnie Gray, dressed in someone else's gray uniform, tries to command artillery, but when he whips out his sword, the blade flies off the handle and inadvertently kills a Union soldier. The Union has swords that stay together, as proven when a Union general surrenders to the Confederates at the end of the film.

If you look at what's not in The General, you will discover the problems with stories that romanticize the American South. The movie contains no people of colour. There is nothing racist or problematic in the dialogue. The existential darkness of the era is gleefully ignored. Johnnie Gray is a train engineer and that's all there is to it. The movie is a light comedy, so it's no surprise that the damning topics of America's history are not included. But, as they sometimes say, the silence is loud. That's because The General plays into the Lost Cause narrative of the South that has not only been disproven, but is actively suppressed because of the harm it has caused.

It must be said, though, that most people don't go back and watch The General for its historical context. I forgot that it was even set during the Civil War until I rewatched it over the weekend. What the film is known for is Keaton's outrageously dangerous and funny stunts, and his dead-pan humour. These stunts were not always executed perfectly. Keaton was knocked unconscious at least once, and a couple forest fires were started by the train's wood-burning engine. It's amazing what can be accomplished when a film set has no safety or environmental oversight.

It is these stunts and their humour that are The General's greatest gifts. It also makes for what I think is the most valuable lesson that modern audiences and filmmakers can take away from this film. That is, the art of telling jokes silently. The visual gag is not a lost art form, but it is certainly underutilized. When you think of the classic comedies of the last 20-or-so years, what comes to mind? For me, it is almost all quotes. "I'm in a glass case of emotions," "It was between that or Muhammad," "My safe word will be whiskey." These are just some of the humorous lines of dialogue that simply won't leave my brain. Keaton had no such safety net. Dialogue carries 0 per cent of the comedic weight in The General. Every laugh is earned through a visual gag. One that has stuck with me is a small one from early in the film. He is in his love's home and he wants to talk to her privately, but there are two kids in the room. Keaton stands up, puts on his hat as if he is preparing to leave, opens the front door, the kids walk out, Keaton remains inside and closes the door, takes his hat off, and continues his conversation with Annabelle Lee.

It's small wonder that Keaton was such a master at this very difficult form of humour. He'd been doing it from basically childbirth. His parents were vaudeville actors, and Keaton started performing in their act when he was three. His parents would sew a suitcase handle to the three-year-old Keaton's clothes and use it to toss their son around the stage and sometimes into the audience. So, when you watch The General and wonder how he performs some of these stunts, just remember that you're watching a master at work.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you have to watch silent movies. There is so much new content coming out that sitting down to watch a movie from 100 years ago seems a little pointless. However, I do defend the merit of the silents as a way to better understand the true craftsmanship behind moviemaking. The General may not align entirely with our modern-day sensibilities, but it's still as funny as ever. At around 80 minutes, it's a pretty accessible film, and one I'd recommend to anyone looking to watch their first silent movie. If you can go to one of these events, like the one at the Palacio Libertad, where they accompany the film with live orchestration, then you're guaranteed to have a very memorable night.